Make Success Visible

I won’t go into details, but last week my coworkers and I were in need of a little cheering up so I turned to Edith Mae Cummings’ Pots and Pans and Millions: A Study in Woman’s Right to Be in Business; her Proclivities and Capacity for Success (whew!) and found the following. It was published by […]

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Things I Must Do To-day

[Note to Readers: This was obviously written just after 9/11…] No joking around this week, dear friends. As the helicopters pass over my Washington, D.C., home just blocks from the Capitol, I think endlessly of the friends and family and strangers touched by the horrible tragedy that was September 11. I struggled tonight to find […]

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How to Distinguish Death

This week’s selection is from Professor T. W. Shannon’s Nature’s Secrets Revealed: Scientific Knowledge of The Laws of Sex Life and Heredity or, Eugenics. You never know ~ this might come in handy someday. 1916: How to Distinguish Death As many instances occur of parties being buried alive, they being to all appearances dead, the great importance […]

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Building a New Disposition

This one seems appropriate to start out the new year. It’s from Vivilore: The Pathway to Mental and Physical Perfection, which was written in 1904 by Mary Ries Melendy. I wonder if folks one hundred years ago resolved to do this or that around December 31st? 1904: Building a New Disposition I. Never look on the […]

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Brothers and Sisters

My older brother Chris celebrates a birthday this week. Most of the advice I found about brothers and sisters was about sibling rivalry, which we don’t have at all (except that my website is so much better than his, don’t you think?) but I did track down this little blurb about trying getting along with younger […]

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Be a Good Worker Bee

Q Dear Miss Abigail: I am starting a new job soon. How can I make a good impression during my first few days? Signed, Jane A Dear Jane: Although the author of the following excerpt suggests that companies often give employees “a break” early on, she stresses the importance of manners and punctuality at all […]

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The Write Stuff

Q Dear Miss Abigail: I have a girlfriend who lives in another country, but she hasn’t written me like she said she would. What should I do? Signed, John A Dear John: Uh, oh. Her actions do not appear to be a good sign, according to the following advice from Warren D. Bowman’s Home Builders of […]

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